A small flicker, a smoldering ember. If left unchecked, it can become a raging inferno, consuming everything in its path. Unless someone stands tall and douses the flames. Four tales of courage

As told to C. B. Wahler

He’s a busy man, the menahel of a large yeshivah high school in a nice-sized community. He has acceptance letters to send, dozens of shy applicants waiting.

There are fewer interviews this year, though. Fewer interviews, fewer acceptances, a smaller class. There’s competition, a new yeshivah that promises to offer a curriculum similar to theirs, only better. Better, better, he muses as he looks at the full-page ads extolling the in-depth learning, state-of-the-art building, exceptional rebbeim, and individualized attention of the yet-untried new yeshivah.

Some of the board members have been nagging him, worried about what this would do to their enrollment, but he knows it’s up to Hashem. “We’ll focus on the students we have, on what we can give to them,” he says repeatedly.

Still, he can’t deny that it hurts a little. It hurts when parents who’ve sent six sons through their system turn their backs and eagerly enroll their next bochur in the New Yeshivah. It hurts when a prized rebbi is lured over to the New Yeshivah by the promise of a huge raise and a leadership position. It hurts when he hears, through the never-failing grapevine, how the staff of the New Yeshivah subtly disparaged his methodology, his hashkafos, his management of the school.

The new school year starts. The seventeen boys of the New Yeshivah’s ninth-grade continue to be a hot topic of conversation.

“They make fun of us,” he overhears a student complain.

“Yeah,” another chimes in. “They think they’re better than us, that we’re goyim just because they have more rules than us.”

Everyone in the city has an opinion. Suddenly, he’s branded; more than once, the room goes quiet as he enters.